The statewide lockdown is set to end on June 16.
The lockdown strategy in Kerala, of imposing statewide restrictions, will be changed. “The lockdown strategy will be changed in the coming days. Instead of implementing the same restrictions and testing methods across the state, it has been planned to impose different levels of regulations according to the intensity of the spread of the disease,” Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said on Monday. The state has been under a lockdown since May 8, which was extended multiple times. The current lockdown will end on June 16. Pinarayi Vijayan in a press meet on June 14, Monday, said that local self-governing bodies will be categorised according to the extent of the disease spread and preventive measures will be taken accordingly. “The details will be decided later after further consultations,” the CM said.
Meanwhile, Pinarayi said that the Test Positivity Rate (TPR) of COVID-19 is declining in the state. The average TPR, which is the number of samples that test positive among a group of samples, for the last three days, is 12.7%. The Chief Minister said that Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad and Malappuram districts have a TPR of less than 15% and it is below 10% in Alappuzha and Kozhikode districts. The state declared a lockdown on May 5 when the number of daily COVID-19 cases reported was 41,593 with a TPR of 25.69%. However, Pinarayi added, “Even though there is a decline in TPR as a whole, when it comes to local bodies, the picture is not so rosy. There are 14 local bodies with a TPR higher than 35%, 37 with a TPR between 28-35% and 127 in the 21-28% TPR range. The spread of the disease has come down due to the lockdown, as intended.”
The state on June 14 reported 7,719 new COVID-19 cases from 68,573 sample tests. The daily bulletin said that 161 deaths were reported, taking the death toll in the state to 11,342. On June 14, 16,743 patients recovered from the infection and at present, the state has 1.13 lakh active cases. The CM also said that the state government is trying to complete the vaccination drive, depending upon the supply from the Union government. A total of 1.12 crore doses of the vaccine have been distributed in the state till June 13. The first dose was given to 68.14 lakh people above the age of 45 and the second dose to 14.27 lakh people, while in the age group of 18 to 44 years, 10.95 lakh people have received the first dose and 958 have got the second dose. “Kerala has received 98.83 lakh doses of vaccine from the Union government and over 1 crore doses were given from that. The state government directly procured 10.73 lakh doses and out of that, 8.92 lakh doses have been distributed. Currently, there is a stock of 4.32 lakh doses supplied by the Union Government and 2.08 lakh doses bought by the state government,” Pinarayi said.
